As use of the "information highway" becomes increasingly more prolific, so does the introduction of new products which provide access to the information highway. In such a competitive market, a need exists for ways of decreasing the cost and time involved with developing a finished product. To that end, systems and software have been implemented which facilitate expedited testing of a new product prior to release into the market.
However, known test arrangements have not proven completely satisfactory because they can only test equipment or management systems in isolation, and thus require substantial user interaction and time to provide comprehensive testing. In addition, known arrangements do not allow ongoing monitoring and reporting while a test is running.